Introducing Short URLs

With the rise of microblogging services like Twitter and Identi.ca, the length of URLs has been the subject of much discussion. Some research has even suggested that long URLs cost us significant dollars, and that by shortening URLs, one could realize significant cost savings in bandwidth. As such, today, we’re unveiling OSNe.ws, our own short URL service. OSNe.ws links are currently peppered throughout the site: you can view them by hovering over any news item, any conversation, or at the end of any story via the “Tweet this!” link. Note that these links are 301 redirected to the appropriate OSNews.com page, there is no actual content living on OSNe.ws. We hope you enjoy this new service and that it encourages you to share our links more readily. Update by AS: Because everyone seems to be so focused on the “bandwidth savings” of links, let me be very clear: the new URLs are only for your convenience and saving characters in sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Identica where you’re limited on characters.

51 Comments

Neat! I don’t have much use for short URLs, but I like “osne.ws”! That’s how I’m typing it in my address bar from now on.

Using short URIs / URLs (cf. RFC) is definitely interesting for contexts where you can’t click on hyperlinks directly. Written material and even verbally communicated links (“Go visit …”) are such cases. But why does the punctuation appear in such an ungood place? In the past, most URI were formed <topic/organisation/thing>.{org|com|net|<national_suffix>} . Because .ws exists, osnews.com -> osne.ws, but that split the part “news” in “osnews”. Woudln’t it be better to split it as os.news? I know that’s not possible because .news doesn’t exist (at least not at the moment, I think). While it’s easier to understand and to communicate “oh es news dot com” (as well as “oh es dot news” would be) in a spoken statement (than “oh es nee dot doubleyou es” or even “osnee dit doubleyou es”), it’s handy in the case that you need to enter it via keyboard, and it’s still readable (allthough “news” is now “ne.ws” which has potential to interrupt the reading flow, but I know that this doesn’t matter).

An interesting task would be to write a program that, given a dictionary of the english language, determines all possible combinations of “word” -> “wo.rd” where “wo” is the first part of the given word, and “rd” is a valid suffix. 🙂

I can understand using URL-shortening services for print magazines, papers, letters, etc. Places where you have to hand-transcribe the links into the browser address bar in order to visit the link.

But, what’s the point of using them on the web? You already have the full text in the HTML, why bother obfuscating it further? That’s why we have the ability to add a short description in the < a > tag.

Considering all the extra crap in the javascript code that needs to be downloaded, do you really think removing a couple of bytes of HTML will make a dent in the bandwidth used?

This is just ridiculous, pointless, and possibly even harmful to the end-user.

Hrm, move mouse onto story, link appears. Move mouse off story, link disappears. Sounds like blinking to me. Just try to move the mouse cursor across the front page to get to a link in the opposite corner — a bunch of links appear and disappear. Sounds like blinking to me.

Very interesting article, now that’s some innovative analysis! That said, I don’t think that making a parallel set of osne.ws URLs makes sense because you’re only saving three characters in each GET request. On the other hand, the marginal savings in bandwidth are more than offset by the 301 redirect as well as all the bots that will go through both sets of links.

EDIT: I forgot that the rest of the URL after the osne.ws is also shortened. Still, is it enough to offset the 301 redirect and bots going to the same pages twice? Whatever the outcome, it’s a worthy experiment, and I hope it works!

Very interesting article, now that’s some innovative analysis! That said, I don’t think that making a parallel set of osne.ws URLs makes sense because you’re only saving three characters in each GET request. On the other hand, the marginal savings in bandwidth are more than offset by the 301 redirect as well as all the bots that will go through both sets of links.

OSnews is just wasting bandwidth with their short URLs but it could save bandwidth for you, me and other site owners, if we used the short links in our message board messages. Less content to download since less characters in a message.

I forgot that the rest of the URL after the osne.ws is also shortened.

The short URLs just double the amount of bandwidth used in URLs because the original URL has to be sent to the user as usual, but there is then this extra call for the short URL too. So it’s just crap if the OSnews folks wanted to save money through this.

It would be much more sane to scrap all the useless settings from the URL. Like what I have when viewing the second page of comments:

?view=flat&threshold=0sort=comment_id&order=o&&perpage=15&offset=15

I’ve not set any options myself so these are the very defaults. The server should really know what are the default settings without me submitting them to it on every page load.

In terms of bandwidth I think the osne.ws implementation kind of defeats the purpose. The url size may be smaller but anyone clicking on a link will now make (not one but) two http requests and dns queries because of the redirect.

Now you could say the urls are displayed far more than actually requested so bandwidth savings in downloads out weigh the bandwidth added to requests. Well this may be true but if one of the purposes of this exercise is to save bandwidth, why implement a scenario where in some cases you will have negative gains?

On the other hand, for character confined mediums like twitter, this is a great feature to have.

EXACTLY!!! Short URL’s are the type of nonsense someone who understands JUST enough about the internet to be dangerous but not enough to understand how it works is likely to come up with.

More usefual would likely have been more natural URL’s for accessability reasons – as any bandwidth ‘savings’ is instantly destroyed by the extra double-handshake to the server, especially when you figure in the rounding up of packet sizes.

It’s pretty much the same type of asshattery you see when people do things like whitespace strip their markup – when they usually have bigger wastes of bandwidth in there like inlined javascript functions, presentational markup, classes on elements that are all the same inside an already classed or unique parent container, div’s and classes around obvious headings, use of the name attribute when you have a perfectly good ID near the anchor in the first place, scripting that doesn’t gracefully degrade for “gee ain’t it neat” bull like tabs, non-semantic semantics and outright invalid markup… Thinks like say… 120+ Validation errors meaning do not have HTML, you have gibberish. (many of which just beg the question is it so hard to wrap your output in the htmlspecialchars function?)

ShortURL’s fall into the ‘magic bullet’ category of bandwidth fixes, where you end up having to tell the poor shmuck who buys into that malarkey that there’s no such thing as magic.

Wow guys, donâ€™t take it too seriously! It was a joke, calling it bandwidth savings. We know it requires a redirect and two DNS queries. OSne.ws is for convenience when using on Twitterâ€”nothing more, nothing less. It just removes the obscurity from some URL shortening services when linking to osnews articles.

You use a download manager to retrieve a piece of software. But that download manager cannot figure out the redirection. Why don’t we have SFTP downloads with the site giving a password to a registered user? Do we want cookies tracing our route?

The web is often run by business narcissists and nerds on slashdot who don’t understand that short URLs should be in plain language, not redirect like OSNews at all unless your using Tiny URL’s preview feature. These nerds used to instruct PayPal tutorials not for the masses, and may still do.

In a time of an economic crises caused by corporate greed, we need a streamlined, simplified and secure, Web 3.0.

Short registration/activation URLs could only come from a licensed copy of MS Windows eg., if you don’t have one you cannot login. Get rid of WGA. I hope Microsoft is listening.

Is OpenID/RSS like a short URL to quickly register for forums, blogs, facebook, twitter, instant messaging etc. Could it be made for these. Microsoft has tried reasonably successfully with .NET passports and Live IDs, but they have their downfalls which I donÂ´t really understand.

Well haven’t you watched Office Space? The “penny off the tray” scam they pulled? Millions of times a fraction of a penny equals a lot of money. But right now with all the time and bandwidth that we have wasted on this article & discussion, we start with a pretty big debt (compared to the fractions of pennies).

On the other hand, I actually think it’s kinda noble for OSNews to do this following the “2012 brownouts” article. At least they are making *some* effort and are giving the right example in doing so. But I concur with a previous author that it had been better releasing this article on April Fool’s Day! Hehe.

Either way, it’s been done before. That is, I assume Thom is familiar with hartvan.nl ?

It uses three characters to create a unique url. Assuming it only uses numbers and letters, this means 36 possible characters on each of the three locations. To calculate the total number of possible urls coming from this system:

36*36*36=46656.

Since we’ve done about 21500 stories so far (minus a number of IDs we didn’t use), this means we can continue using this shortening service for at least the coming ~9 years or so.

Useless for use on web pages, of course, but maybe useful where you might have to write a URL down somewhere. “osne.ws/gla” is certainly a lot shorter than “www.osnews.com/story/21502/Introducing_Short_URLs” – I know which one I’d rather type in.

Same idea as TinyURL and similar, except it’s not relying on a third party, and is slightly more transparent. At least you know what domain it’s going to, so you won’t end up on a shock site, getting rickrolled, or on a phishing site.

Still, not fond of the JavaScript. Always on would be better. Maybe something akin to the “Permalink” bit on the bottom of comments.

Stuff like this comes about primarily due to people’s laziness moreso than a real regard for bandwidth considerations (that’s merely the excuse.) After years of using slang, speed dial, e-mail, texting, and now tweeting people have simply become too lazy (and impatient) to type things out. Everything has been shortened to acronyms and colloquialisms. Have you seen the way young people type letters and prose these days? Language usage and grammar are abysmal and it is only bound to get worse as technology entwines itself deeper and deeper into daily life.

Language usage and grammar are abysmal and it is only bound to get worse as technology entwines itself deeper and deeper into daily life.

Whenever I hear someone say this I, as a linguist, want to get out my cluestick and beat you ’till you cry.

Several studies have already confirmed, quite thoroughly, that “sms language” or “MSN language” as we call it in The Netherlands is not detrimental to language skills – in fact, it;s the exact opposite.

MSN language is an addition to language – not a subtraction. It’s a micro-language that exists in its own bubble, separate form normal language. In fact, using MSN language *stimulates* language skills. People who use it KNOW it’s not normal language, in the same sense that I know English isn’t Dutch. MSN language is an enrichment to language, not a degradation.

People, this is the umpteenth time this week I’ve been discussing language here on OSNews, and please let me explain that being able to drive doesn’t make you a racing driver. Being able to pull a trigger doesn’t make you a god marksman. Being able to babysit doesn’t make you a good parent. Being able to walk doesn’t make you a marathon runner.

Whenever I hear someone say this I, as a linguist, want to get out my cluestick and beat you ’till you cry.

Several studies have already confirmed, quite thoroughly, that “sms language” or “MSN language” as we call it in The Netherlands is not detrimental to language skills – in fact, it;s the exact opposite.

MSN language is an addition to language – not a subtraction. It’s a micro-language that exists in its own bubble, separate form normal language. In fact, using MSN language *stimulates* language skills. People who use it KNOW it’s not normal language, in the same sense that I know English isn’t Dutch. MSN language is an enrichment to language, not a degradation.

People, this is the umpteenth time this week I’ve been discussing language here on OSNews, and please let me explain that being able to drive doesn’t make you a racing driver. Being able to pull a trigger doesn’t make you a god marksman. Being able to babysit doesn’t make you a good parent. Being able to walk doesn’t make you a marathon runner.

Just as much as being able to speak doesn’t make you a linguist.

Okay, then Mr. Linguist how do you explain the poor language and grammar skills of young people today? If it isn’t technology that’s enabling laziness then it must be something? Laziness? Indifference? Stupidity? What?

Okay, then Mr. Linguist how do you explain the poor language and grammar skills of young people today?

What poor skills?

The problem here, I think, and it’s a common one, is that you equate how people write on the web to how they speak/write outside of the web. What I’m trying to tell you is that the language used on the web, in txt messages, and on IM networks is separate from “normal”, or if you will, “traditional” language use. It doesn’t replace traditional language; it’s an addition.

Doctors use medical shorthand as a more efficient means of conveying information, yet, I don’t see you argue that medical shorthand is hurting the language skills of doctors, medical personal, or pharacy shop assistants.

Unfortunately Thom you are not acquainted with the terrible state of British education, where teachers are having to deal with MSN speak in GCSE papers. MSN speak is not the cause of this, itâ€™s just one result of many in a whole societal down-trend.

Language evolves, if it in the future it evolves into an efficient, minimalistic and grammarless language which still renders you able to share thoughts and ideas, what’s the problem?

People always want to preserve the current state of there language. Maybe there afraid they won’t be able to communicate with future generations, or the think: If I had to learn all that grammar, so should future generations.

Preserving is useless, People don’t speak Middle English any more and nobody misses it.

No no, I was trying to say that the language is *not* eroding society! I was saying that eroded language is a sign of eroded society, and that much is clear. Society has eroded, and whilst language evolves, it still doesnâ€™t negate the average school kid getting lazier and lazier (and not knowing even basic facts like being able to point out London on map of Britain).

Shouldn’t that be “text” messages? Or did you forget you’re not writing on a mobile phone/twitter?

Well, it depends. Atleast I’m used to writing “txt message” when I literally mean those SMS messages you send from your phone. I don’t then mean any other kind of short text messages. Maybe he’s just used to meaning similar things? After all, a “text message” could mean almost any kind of a message with mostly text in it.

About this discussion you’re having here..well, I don’t have much to say. I have noticed some teens not knowing how to spell almost anything correctly, but I also see cases who write “SMS speak” on their phone but in essays they write perfect Finnish. I’d just say that those who write “SMS speak” even in essays are just too lazy to bother to learn properly and deserve the bad grades they get.

Language usage and grammar are abysmal and it is only bound to get worse as technology entwines itself deeper and deeper into daily life.

Whenever I hear someone say this I, as a linguist, want to get out my cluestick and beat you ’till you cry. Several studies have already confirmed, quite thoroughly, that “sms language” or “MSN language” as we call it in The Netherlands is not detrimental to language skills – in fact, it;s the exact opposite. MSN language is an addition to language – not a subtraction. It’s a micro-language that exists in its own bubble, separate form normal language. In fact, using MSN language *stimulates* language skills. People who use it KNOW it’s not normal language, in the same sense that I know English isn’t Dutch. MSN language is an enrichment to language, not a degradation. People, this is the umpteenth time this week I’ve been discussing language here on OSNews, and please let me explain that being able to drive doesn’t make you a racing driver. Being able to pull a trigger doesn’t make you a god marksman. Being able to babysit doesn’t make you a good parent. Being able to walk doesn’t make you a marathon runner. Just as much as being able to speak doesn’t make you a linguist.

LOL, it’s an opinion, which for that person is perfectly correct IMO. While having 10000 languages may make people stretch their language muscle, does it make actual communication better for the people who don’t know the other 9999 languages? Walking into the quickie mart and hearing kids and foreigners speaking weird crap may be fun for linguists, but it makes life harder for everyone else. I’m all for growing language when it makes sense, but when you have certain amount of redundancy that people have to look up, then it’s hurting communication. Don’t forget to look at this from a non texing readers perspective. :>

How about limiting comments and articles to 140 all uppercase characters while you are at it. Then you could redo the site entirely in Flash with green text on red background. Finally you could write everything in LOLCAT style and replace all images with goatse.

The point of the domain is to create short links so people can embed them easier.

Why do I always have to explain this idea to everyone like they are children: just because you don’t use something doesn’t mean no one else does either. If you don’t care for URL shortening services, simply don’t use them, no need to pipe in to tell everyone else how it serves no purpose for you.